


death in my eyes

by Pomfry



Series: I have the universe branded on my heart (and the stars beneath my ribs) [2]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Colin as Death, Death as Colin, Death got the idea from Damian, Gen, Heeeey I'm back with this au look at me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 22:40:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11907690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pomfry/pseuds/Pomfry
Summary: Death stands at a crossroads, two bodies, twosoulsthat died too young, and-Death wants to behuman,wants to learn, wants to feel more than a flash of regret or confusion or amusement. Wants to know what it is to be human, because humans are sofascinating,so fearful of death and yet so ready to accept it, so full of emotion and so full of sorrow, so unstoppable and so weak.Death wants toknow.





	death in my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> So basically after Death talked to Damian, he decided to become human too.
> 
> And also, become Death is Death, it can go to any death in time as long as it's already happened, so that's how he becomes Colin.
> 
> But I had fun on this! I don't know if I'll continue this though.

The first thing Death hears in his new body is a whisper, a murmur of exhaustion and love.   
  
The first thing Death hears is a name.   
  
"Colin," the woman with red orange hair that shines like fire breathes with lungs that have no air. "His name is Colin."   
  
Tears escape her eyes as her arms shake from the effort of holding him.   
  
"Please, take care of him," she pleads to someone that Death doesn’t know, and Death can only stare as she presses a kiss to his forehead. "I love you, baby. Mommy loves you, okay?" She says softly, and Death grabs her nose with a little hand, sorrow filling him.   
  
He knows that soon she'll die from the weight of carrying him to term, but still, he loves her desperately.   
  
She's his mother, and he babbles at her, to make her laugh before she passes.   
  
Mommy smiles and holds him close.   
  
"Colin, Mommy loves you. Never forget that." She says, and her heart stops, starts, and stops again.   
  
It doesn't start again.   
  
Death's born in a rundown hospital in a Gotham, with his new name echoing in his ears and his mother holding him in cold arms.   
  
Death decides that he hates what he represents.

It's his first clear memory in this life.

 

\--

 

It starts with Death coming to Creator, hope burning in it as nothing has before, to ask for help.

Death stands at a crossroads, two bodies, two  _ souls _ that died too young, and-

Death wants to be  _ human, _ wants to learn, wants to feel more than a flash of regret or confusion or amusement. Wants to know what it is to be human, because humans are so  _ fascinating,  _ so fearful of death and yet so ready to accept it, so full of emotion and so full of sorrow, so unstoppable and so weak.

Death wants to  _ know. _

So Death appears at Creator’s side, shadows following behind it, clinging to it's presence like a frightened child, and asks, “Teach me how to repress my power so I can become like you.”

Creator looks at Death, young-old eyes shining with the cosmos and veins white with power.

Creator’s body is only eleven years of age, all soft edges and hard-earned muscles in his arms and legs, and Creator made Death all that millennia ago, shaped it from the emptiness around him, and breathed life into his creation, gave Death it's consciousness as the first stars burned around them.

“You are death,” Creator had told Death, silver eyes blazing with new power, and Death, barely one minute old in the only other being’s arms, had nodded, not knowing how to speak, and not knowing how to protest.

“You are Death,” Creator had said again, and something had shifted, had changed within Death, and power rolled in him, had snatched something from Death, and later Death would recognize it as the choice of deciding what it could be.

But Death hadn't known that, back then with the universe still new and Creator making more and more stars and comets and the laws of physics and destroying them when he decides he doesn't like them.

Death had stayed in Creator's arms and simply stared.

Now, with Creator's powers leashed and not allowed to run free as they did once, Death comes to him again, and Creator gazes at his creation, reminding Death of it's first memories that shine like diamonds.

“Why?” Creator asks, and Death flinches back.

“I...I want.” Death can't finish, the words have become tangled in it's throat.

“You want what?” Creator says flatly, and Death takes a breath it doesn't need.

“I want to become human.”

Creator smiles and takes Death's powers in hand. “Okay.”

Death learns to imagine it in a chest, under lock and key, and to  _ never _ let more than a trickle of power out.

“You'll burn out your body if you don't,” Creator says idly, and Death marks it down.

Death _ learns,  _ and it's fantastic, it's magnificent, and when Death leaves, Death is ready.

Death takes the boy destined to be a miscarriage, and straps the other one's soul into his body, makes it so that he doesn't die.

And so Death, knowledge in it's mind, goes to the past and gently takes control of the body, sending the little soul to Death's realm with it's blessing, and settles in to wait.

 

\--

 

Colin is torn from his mother only a few minutes after, taken from her corpse as her soul leaves and joins his, and oh, how he cries.

He wants his mother, wants the warmth and love, and this woman holding him has nothing of the sort.

He screams and sobs, and  _ he's Death why won't they give him back to her,  _ but instead they wrap him up in blankets and cooes as he cries.

_ Yes,  _ his mother is dead. But-

But his mother is with him now. Her love is a balm, a soothing relaxation that makes his eyes close.

_ Sleep, baby. You've worn yourself out,  _ her soul says with a laugh, and Colin can't refuse her, not ever, so he let's unconsciousness take him.

When he wakes, he's still an orphan and where he's going is being discussed between a doctor and a woman in a blood red shirt and stark gray pants.

“He's going to have to stay here for a few days,” the doctor says, and the woman nods, dark brown hair sliding over her shoulder.

“I understand.”

_ Sleep, baby, _ his mother tells him again, just as soft and just as gentle as before, and Colin loses the fight against the want to rest.

And across the ocean, Creator is with his own mother, barely a few months old, and yet still bathed in blood with the cosmos sparking in his eyes and across his skin, and Colin can't wait to meet him again.

 

\--

 

It starts with Colin Wilkes being a miscarriage, a birth not to be, and Jon Kent, one who crosses worlds at only a year old and doesn't survive it.

It starts with Death looking at time, looking at two souls that go before their time, one that dies in the womb and the other that can't hold up against the pressure of rifts.

It starts with Death choosing Colin Wilkes.

And nothing is ever quite the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always loved and brighten up my day and are saved in my Gmail.
> 
> Also! Here's my [Tumblr.](http://nikescaret.tumblr.com) Come visit and chat with me if you want!


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